KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI remained ahead at midday even as regional markets drifted lower on the back of rising oil prices.
Malaysia's market barometer rose 8.06 points or nearly half a percent to 1,715.55, bucking the broader trend as major Asian indices dropped on profit-taking from the tech-driven rally.
Despite the buying interest in Malaysia's blue chips, the underlying sentiment on Bursa Malaysia was negative with 557 declining issues compared to 447 advancing.
Trading volume was 2.05 billion shares valued at RM1.38bil.
Leading the blue chips higher, Press Metal
rose 13 sen to RM7.99, Telekom Malaysia gained nine sen to RM7.09 and PETRONAS Chemicals rose eight sen to RM5.30.
Among the heavyweight banks, CIMB gained eight sen to RM7.82 and Public Bank added nine sen to RM4.85.
Among active counters, ACE Market debutant AMS was flat at 29 sen, Zetrix AI shed 0.5 sen to 85.5 sen and AirAsia X was down seven sen to RM1.23.
After the recent surge in equities prices, the oil crisis reined in optimism in Asia as Brent futures closed above US$100 a barrel overnight.
At the time of writing, the international benchmark was US$103.31 a barrel.
In Japan, the Nikkei slipped 0.95% to 59,036. South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.36% to 6,395.
China's Shanghai Composite index fell 0.79% to 4,073, the blue-chip CSI300 slid 0.79% to 4,761 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.12% to 25,870.
